The Chlorophyll Series
(Poems about nature and consciousness)
By Sophie Rouméas

II.    The Karmic Tree

Toroidal is the energy of karma,

a subtle law of cause and effect.

Like an apple fallen, breaking apart,

never far from the tree, its flesh feeds the root,

the root feeds the blossom,

and the blossom gives back the fruit.

Like spiritual nourishment,
the apple is picked, bitten,
digested, and recycled,

its juice sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter,

reminding me of what I carry within.

I could leave the apple on the ground —
it would turn to dust,

its taste would disappear,

but its seed would wait patiently,
and be reborn among the roots of the tree that bore it.

The tree will blossom
year after year,
until I am ready

to reach out my hand and harvest its wisdom.

Life teaches me without détour:

it saturates me with what I cannot yet transmute,

it withholds from me what I do not set in motion.

Nothing is punishment, everything is cycle;

the flow restores itself when I open my heart to learn.

What is doesn’t define me,

what is connects me.

Life teaches me again:

it saturates me with what I refuse to welcome,

it withholds from me what I do not dare to offer.

Still, nothing is punishment, everything is cycle;

the flow restores itself when I open my hands to exchange.

The apple lends itself to emotion —

I create too many and I am overwhelmed;

I create none and I wither.

Between the two I am invited to transmute into light

what I am at last ready to integrate.

Which — the apple or the emotion —

will let me touch

the mystery of being human?

I know that the apple I flee

will always return to my feet,

until I acknowledge it.

Thus, each fall becomes promise,

each emotion becomes passage.

So I sit at the foot of the tree.

In silence.

The fruit in my hands,

I breathe and discern

what is expressed in me —

the observer involved,

empty and whole at once,

each moment opening into a new season.